Charles Frenzel

“Ms. Nightwing?” The voice belongs to my field tech in Houston, Texas. “What is it, Laz?” Laz, short for Lazarra. Lazarra Rayburn, my field tech at the Sabine River Nuclear Project. She is a smart young woman that I like a lot. Background noise on the connection blurs her speech.

I am a voice in my head. As long as I don’t interfere, the rest of me functions rather well—until Miss V hands me the fortune cookie at the finish line of a plateful of her twice baked pork. “Herro Razalla,” Miss Violet does the Chinese thing with Lazarra even though she’s Stanford, Class of […]

Thump, thump, and bang…thump, thump, and bang— repeating endlessly. Macquereau winces and I hold on tightly to the vibrating steering wheel as we bounce over a stretch of bad highway between Vidor and the Louisiana border. The concrete slabs were poured over a poorly prepared foundation. Heavy trucks slamming across the loose slabs caused them […]

Captain Srrith smoothed her orange fur across the bandage over her right eye and suppressed her irritation by concentrating on the trajectory displays flickering across her pilot’s console. Imagine being mistaken for a cave leopard! Aldren would be laughing all the way to the next star system when he saw her recording of the indigenous […]

The tragic episode began when Carl’s wife said that Jim’s barbeque was better than his. “A damn site better than yours,” he remembered her yelling at him. Jill had said it, and he couldn’t forget it. After her loud and slightly drunken pronouncement, she had flounced off across their new, Mexican-tile patio leaving  him standing […]

I pull the sealed tab on the bottle of skimmed milk and pour a slug of soured milk over my beautiful peach. A key turns in the side door in the dining room. Molly Flannigan lets herself into my house with her usual, intimidating flourish. With grace and skill I jerk back the hand with […]

I’d never make it in paradise. I ask too many questions of management, stuffed animals don’t make me feel warm or cozy, and I stir up trouble when I get bored. I swallow hard against a lump in my throat and then shiver with a sudden chill. For a moment I hope that the dream […]

Monday Morning “The line of showers that moved through the New Orleans area last night will continue south into the Gulf, today. Monday’s forecast calls for clearing along the coast from Biloxi, Mississippi west to Lake Charles, Louisiana. The marine forecast predicts: northerly winds offshore at fifteen knots, decreasing to five knots by this evening. […]

             Morgan and Mark eventually made their excuses and wandered off to do what it is that young people do, leaving me sitting alone on the Friendly Lady and doing what old people do—thinking too much and waiting for something to happen.             When I felt a gentle tilt to the deck I […]

Sam writes in his Journal             The Friendly Lady is a registered sailing vessel of the United States. Sam Friendly is listed as the owner’s name and Captain of the thirty ton sailboat. According to maritime custom, I could offer a marriage on the high seas—or a funeral. Neither occasion has risen.       On deck […]

Sunday Afternoon with Mark             The fact that I never finished my conversation with Chalmers about Mary bothers me. If my engineer is feeling distracted, I haven’t noticed—but then I’ve been distracted and so I’m not so sure I’m paying much attention to that sort of thing.        When Mark caches up with me […]

Some History of Chalmers and the Moutons             What a small world. “I had no idea that you know Mary Mouton,” I reply.       “Not so much your Mary Mouton, her parents,” Chalmers says. “Your Mary was a little girl in a pink dress at my father’s funeral. Margaret, Mary’s mother, married Hamilton Mouton […]

A Friendly Hint of Trouble             Now and then, when I’m feeling particularly villainous, I venture into a local Church where I’m like a driver challenging the local sheriff’s favorite speed trap . The virtuous Morgan Nightwing might have chosen to explain her attendance by discussing her spiritual needs or talking about giving up […]

An Exchange of Favors              Vidor, Texas had a reputation for being a tough town. Vidor started out life supplying cheap labor for the wildcatters when oil gushed from the Spindletop field. After that, with the oil flowing and drilling at an ebb, the same people sweated at the refineries that processed the raw […]

Saturday’s are for what?             The reaction from too much Jack Daniels and no food catches up with me at four o’clock on Saturday morning[. My God, was I dreaming or were those Daliks screaming ex-ter-mi-nate on late-night Dr. Who…and what possessed me to watch a James Dean movie? Haven’t I got a bad […]